WebApi - Specify Content-Type in Uri - asp.net-web-api

Question

You can use
AddUriPathExtensionMapping("json", "application/json");
To enable media type to be specified as part of the uri as seen below
http://localhost/products.json
How can I get WebApi to allow me to post to this uri without having to specify a Content-Type header. I would like WebApi to use the extension to determine the Content-Type.

Answer 1

Question: Why would you want to specify the Content-Type in the Uri? Usually specifying the media type in the Uri is for GET kind of scenarios and where the user does not have a way to provide the Accept header. For example, in the browser address bar, one could enter /products.json or /products.xml to see the results.
For all other scenarios where you can make a request with headers, you should be sending them in regular way. Could you describe your scenario more?
Edited:
If you indeed are looking for GET requests, then you could do like in the following example:
Register routes like below:
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "DefaultApiWithExtension2",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}.{ext}"
);
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "DefaultApiWithExtension1",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}.{ext}");
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "DefaultApi",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
);
config.Formatters.XmlFormatter.AddUriPathExtensionMapping("xml", "application/xml");
config.Formatters.JsonFormatter.AddUriPathExtensionMapping("json", "application/json");
If your application is hosted in IIS, then you would see errors in using the . character in the url. You can resolve this by having the following setting in Web.Config:
<system.webServer>
<modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true" />

Answer 2

You could add a server side message handler that parses the URI and sets the Content-Type header before it reaches the ApiController.